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Title: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter ISBN: 0-394-70317-0 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 June, 1963 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Forecast of Things to Come
Comment: In sharply elucidating America's long and unfortunate flirtation with anti-intellectualism, brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Hofstadter sheds meaningful light on why American democracy has suffered in subsequent years after the publication of this milestone book, culminating with an increasing number of elegible voters sitting on the sidelines, dropping out of the electoral process.
A major focal point of Hofstadter's study is the turbulent fifties, when the demagoguery of Nixon and McCarthy poisoned the political atmosphere. Hofstadter perceptively reveals a democracy which emerges as a tragic loser when emotion replaces reason.
Rating: 5
Summary: Dated, But Still a Classic
Comment: Why do I say "dated"? Because the America of which Richard Hofstadter writes no longer exists. Published in the early 1960s (and probably written during the waning of the 1950s), Hofstadter's book stands in the shadow of McCarthyism, the anticommunist consensus of the Cold War, the bland gray-flannel-suit conformity of the Eisenhower years--all of which would begin to dissolve into irreconcilable fragments only a short time after the book hit the stores in 1964.
I would submit that anti-intellectualism is indeed still a dominant force in American life--politicians make appeals to the "folks", right-wing radio talk-shows belabor the follies of academia, films and popular publishing pander to the desire for the basest kind of sensationalism--but that it is an entirely different sort of anti-intellectualism than the kind that held sway over American politics and culture in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s.
Hofstadter's book is certainly worth reading, though, especially if you are interested in the culture of the 1950s. Like Mills' _The Power Elite_ and Reisman's _The Lonely Crowd_, it remains one of the great sociological/historical works from that era; one that offers a vivid portrait of a unique period in American history.
Rating: 5
Summary: An enduring study.
Comment: Richard Hofstadter's remarkable ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN AMERICAN LIFE reflects the Cold War/post-McCarthy era, yet still echoes powerfully today. Why this book has endured for four decades is not only because it still rings true, but also for Hofstadter's iron-clad reasoning. (This is not easy reading--at least for me it wasn't). Hofstadter examines the multi-fronted attacks on intellectuals throughout the centuries: attacks from religions who suspected intellectuals of atheism or worse; attacks from the left; attacks from the right; attacks from the lower class who perceived intellectuals as privileged; and attacks from the upper class who worried about the knowledge/power balance. Yes, Hofstadter does linger long about the anti-intellectual movement of the early 60s, and some of those references are lost to us, but that cannot be helped nor blamed on him. I also enjoyed the distinction between intelligence and intellectualism--very acute.
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Title: The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays by Richard Hofstadter ISBN: 0674654617 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1996 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: What's the Matter with Kansas? : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank ISBN: 0805073396 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Social Darwinism in American Thought by Richard Hofstadter ISBN: 0807055034 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1992 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip Mining of American Culture by Katharine Washburn, John F. Thornton, John Simon ISBN: 0393317234 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy by Thomas Frank ISBN: 0385495048 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 18 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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